Get Your Rants

Followers

Friday, November 21, 2014

Scoring extravaganza in Atlanta

The Browns are 6-4 this season and scraping the bottom of
the AFC North with the Baltimore Ravens.

The Atlanta Falcons are 4-6 this season and enjoying the
heady feeling of first place in the NFC South with the New Orleans Saints.

Go figure. So much for parity in the National Football
League.

The two teams meet Sunday in Atlanta for only the 14th
time in this series – the Browns lead, 10-3 – with the Falcons coming off a
two-game sweep of division rivals on the road and the Browns reeling a bit from
an unexpected loss at home to Houston.

Momentum clearly rests in the Falcons’ corner after a 2-6
start in a division no team seems to want to win. The Browns, meanwhile,
couldn’t handle the loftiness of first place.

The reason the Browns are a pair of games above .500 is the
dominance – playing fast and loose with comparisons here – of their
inter-conference schedule against the NFC South, having knocked off the Saints
and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Considering how poorly the NFC South is playing this season,
that’s nothing about which to be boastful. Then again, the manner in which
previous Browns teams have performed in Atlanta, this trip could turn out to be
beneficial.

They have traveled to the Deep South six times over the
years and won five games, the lone loss (17-14) administered in 1993 when Todd
Philcox was the quarterback for the original Browns. The new Browns are 2-1
against the Falcons, including a 17-13 victory in their only trip to Atlanta.

Why the success in Atlanta? No one knows for certain. It’s a
little like the Jacksonville Jaguars’ success against the Browns over the
years, especially in Cleveland (6-2).

A perfect example is the Browns’ trip to Jacksonville in
week seven this season against the winless Jags, who proceeded to humiliate
them and it wasn’t even close. It cannot be reasoned. It just is.

Who knows? Maybe the Falcons are jinxed when the Browns come
to town. They have scored just 87 points against Cleveland in those six games. For
the statistically challenged, that’s 14.5 points a game. Amazingly, the Falcons
have never scored more than 17 points against Cleveland at home.

Maybe it was a case of the Browns catching the Falcons at
home at the right time. At first, that might have been the case after star
Atlanta receiver Julio Jones missed a couple of practices earlier this week with an undisclosed
illness. But he returned Friday and is set to battle former SEC rival Joe Haden.

The two have never met on the field in a regular-season NFL game, but were intense rivals when Haden attended the University of Florida and
Jones played at the University of Alabama.

As long as Jones is in the NFL, he will be a constant
reminder of a trade the Browns and Falcons engineered on college draft day in 2011. It
turned out to be draft gold for Atlanta and draft fool’s gold for the Browns.

Cleveland General Manager Tom Heckert Jr. owned the sixth
pick overall, but went for quantity over quality when he gave up that pick for
five selections that covered two drafts. The Falcons surrendered their
first-round pick (No. 27), a second-rounder and fourth-rounder in 2011, and a
first-rounder and fourth-rounder in 2012 for Jones.

With those picks, the Browns took defensive tackle Phil
Taylor, wide receiver Greg Little, fullback Owen Marecic and quarterback
Brandon Weeden. The 2012 fourth-rounder was used as part of the deal to move up
and draft Trent Richardson in 2012.

Little, Marecic and Weeden are gone, of course. Little and
Weeden are backups with Cincinnati and Dallas after failing miserably with the
Browns. And Marecic is out of football entirely.

The lone Cleveland survivor of that deal is Taylor, who has played
sparingly this season because of knee problems and is currently on injured
reserve.

Jones, meanwhile, has been sensational. He has 241 catches
for 3,649 yards and 23 touchdowns in 44 games (he missed the last 11 games last
season with a broken foot) and has caught 160 passes that gained a first down.

He has 67 receptions for 912 yards but only three TDs this
season, teaming with Roddy White to give the Falcons arguably the best pair of
wideouts in the league.

Where the Falcons have had trouble this season is the
running game on offense (only 96 yards a game) and the overall defense (403
yards a game). But the Browns have had trouble stopping the run most of the
season regardless of the opposition.

All of which means veteran Steven Jackson can look forward
to having a big afternoon despite running for just 467 yards this season in 10
games. If the Browns can’t stop the likes of Denard Robinson, Lorenzo
Taliaferro and Alfred Blue, Jackson should find little resistance from the
Cleveland front seven.

With inside linebacker Karlos Dansby out for at least
this week and possibly the season with a knee problem, there is no reason to
believe that defense will be any sharper without its best player.

Throw in Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan, who completes nearly
two-thirds of his passes and has a weapon for an arm, and the Cleveland defense
could be in for a very long afternoon.

The only chance the Browns have to win this one is on
offense. The Falcons yield an average of 122 yards on the ground and another
289 through the air. The Cleveland offensive line must win the trench battles for running
backs Isaiah Crowell and Terrance West and keep quarterback Brian Hoyer clean.
The latter objective might be easier.

The Atlanta pass rush is an oxymoron. In 10 games, the
Falcons have dropped opposing quarterbacks 13 times, nine by the defensive
line, two by linebacker Paul Worrilow and two more by the secondary. The 13
sacks are spread around to nine players with defensive end Osi Umenyiora
leading the pack with 2½.

With Josh Gordon returning to the lineup after serving his
10-game suspension, offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan for the first time this
season has a wide receiver who can make a difference.

If this one turns into a shootout, the Browns have a shot
only because Gordon is back in the mix and makes them that much more legitimate.
The X factor is the Cleveland defense, which played way too conservatively last
week in the loss to Houston.

Mike Pettine, perhaps because he has little faith in his
secondary, has chosen to play much more that way than when he was an
aggressive defensive coordinator in Buffalo last season. Look for more of that soft
coverage Sunday, especially with the likes of Jones and White.

For that reason, Ryan and his offense will rack up
substantial yardage and simply outscore the Cleveland offense in an
entertaining game with defense taking a week off. For the first time in this
series, the Falcons will score more than 17 points in a game.A whole lot more. Make it:

9 comments:

Instead of worrying about his secondary, Pettine should be more concerned with his front seven. They're the ones that really suck! Don't you get a little nervous making predictions this year the way the rollercoaster has gone?

Keep in mind, most of our "confidence" is on the sidelines with injuries. The roster is no where near where we we were when the season started. Not to mention that Hoyer has been less than awe-inspiring, to quote Jerry Reed, "When you're hot you're hot and when you're not you're not". We've had a lot of "not" lately.